Posts tagged with: Reverend Robert Sirico

The Blaze TV will be featuring the Rev. Robert Sirico and Rabbi Daniel Lapin on Wednesday, March 20. The hour-long program will focus on the election of Pope Francis, formerly Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina.

Pope Francis has already made several statements regarding the Church’s relationship with the Jewish people, and the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo di Segni, plans to attend the papal inauguration. Carol Glatz, of The CatholicHerald UK, writes:

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, called Pope Francis’s election “a significant moment in the history of the Church” that will foster positive relations in the wake of “the transformational papacies of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI – pontiffs who launched historic reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people,” he said.

“There is much in his record that reassures us about the future,” Mr Foxman said, including “the new Pope’s sensitivity to the Jews”.

There is one thing certain about picking a new pope: there is nothing certain about picking a pope. While there are predictions that the conclave could begin as soon as tomorrow, it likely will take longer for the cardinals to start the sealed process.

Sirico, who is traveling to Rome this week, said he expects the process to move swiftly.

“I will be surprised if we didn’t have a date for the conclave by the end of (today),” said Sirico. “My guess is that it will be a week later.”

Under the church’s constitution, the cardinals would have been required to set the conclave between March 15 and March 20, but in one of his last acts as pope, Benedict allowed the cardinals to change the date.

There is a general feeling among the cardinals to move the process along, but not all the cardinals have arrived at the Vatican yet. As with nearly everything at the Vatican, there is a strictly formal process: the dean of cardinals greets those present, there is time for prayer and meditation, and a pledge of secrecy regarding the proceedings. There is also a drawing to see which cardinals will act as assistants during the conclave. In addition, this is the first time many of the cardinals have met, or seen each other in a long time, and time is set aside for fraternizing.

“They will take a kind of reading of where the cardinals see the church and what are the needs of the church,” said Sirico.

The cardinals will meet twice today in morning and late afternoon sessions beginning around 3:30 a.m. Detroit time.

“They will probably have a date for the conclave late Monday,” said Sirico.

“If they don’t, then that tells you there are strong disagreements.”

While many are making predictions as to who the next pope will be, it is still a process that can be quite unpredictable. The election of a pope from Poland in the not-so-distant past is a good reminder of that.

While it is imperative to our economic recovery to have a budget that is fiscally sound, it is also crucial to have a budget that is morally sound. There are critics to cutting entitlement programs, however, a fiscally sound budget which may require a look at entitlement cuts and reforms, will help the poor and vulnerable. If we continue the spending trend the United States has been fostering under previous budgets than economic recovery will be hampered which means less job opportunities. The poor and vulnerable will be dependent on entitlement programs, violating the principle of subsidarity.

A fiscally responsible budget also abides by stewardship principles. To be good stewards we must look long term and create a strong and stable prospering economy not just now, but for our children and grandchildren. Monsignor Ignacio Barreiro-Carámbula addresses this issue in his blog post:

…we are leaving our debts to future generations. We are asking them to pay the principal and the interest on our debt with their labors. This is akin to forcing them into a form of indentured servitude to us, and it will last long after we have gone to meet our Maker. By law, one can reject an inheritance if has more liabilities than assets, but a citizen cannot reject public debt if he wants to remain a citizen…

Rev. Sirico also articulates the necessity of morality in the Federal Budget during his recent interview with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN’s World Over.

Recently the Acton Institute pulled back the political camouflage of the Lifestyle Tax, a new tax under consideration by the Senate Finance Committee, and exposed it as an extension of the Sin Tax. The Senate Finance Committee is considering levying the Lifestyle Tax to raise funds for President Obama’s health care plan.